


Her Rabbit Heart

by fourletterepithet



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Awkward Cullen, Awkward Flirting, Eventual Smut, F/M, Gen, Sassy Inquisitor, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, actual slow burn this time i swear to god guys, flustered Cullen, i swear the dongle will find the vagoo eventually, not "i am going to call it a slow burn and them have them kiss in chapter two", uncomfortable dancing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-15 09:07:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16930401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourletterepithet/pseuds/fourletterepithet
Summary: She was sent to the Conclave to gather information."Well," she says, years later, "I certainly succeded."





	1. Changes

The demon’s body throws up a choking cloud of ash and debris as it crashes to the ground. The patter of gravel and demon ichor join the crystalline crackle from the rift itself. Beyond that, a profound silence falls across the panting survivors. Velthei lowers her arm, squinting into the ash-filtered blare of green dangling above them, then thrusts her hand into the air.

It _burns,_ the mark.

 _Clan Lavellan doesn’t hesitate,_ she thinks, and drops her staff to brace her arm as light screams out from the mark on her hand.

Her palm sizzles like meat over a fire.

Tears leak from the corners of her eyes.

And when the pulse of lurid green arcs through the air to smash the gaping hole into the Fade that hangs thousands of feet above them, a cheer goes up from the soldiers.

They don’t notice her fall.

 

* * *

  

The little rill that runs through the glade the clan has assembled in winds through the grass like rope, like a snake, shallow and rocky and clear as the sky. They’ve seen ice on the bank twice now, dew frozen on the bronze-dipped foliage of the trees ringing the clearing. The bite of the wind and the misting of their breath, even when the sun pivots to its zenith, tells the clan that the year’s much-delayed winter is finally on its way.

The children knew something was going to happen. Under the watchful eye of the clan elders, the adults had cleared a swath of grass, surrounded it in a ring of stones, and begun to stack logs as big as the strongest hunter’s forearm four rows tall. They had collected _far_ more fuelwood than was necessary for their own use. The cooks had been at work since morning, and the smell of succotash, acorn bread, and venison stew rises from their skillets and pots hung over little campfires between the aravels. The adults shoo them away when they get too close, and they run off cackling and trying to guess what’s being planned. Each tale is more absurd than the last.

Night falls, and the anticipation is palpable. One of the elders whistles to assemble the clan.

When enough of the People have arrived, a gray-haired elf steps out of the central ring of elders, walking with gliding strides towards the stack of wood in the center of the clearing. The Keeper’s staff is simple, undecorated, but polished to a fine sheen. Mythal’s vallaslin tracks across her weathered face, and her gaze sweeps the crowd.

A gesture, a _thoom_ , and the stack of wood bursts into flames that stretch towards the darkening sky. The cheer that goes up is deafening.

A woman in robes smiles, and nudges the woman beside her with an elbow. “She’s always had a flair for theatrics.”

Her cohort tuts and folds her arms. “ _You’re_ one to judge.”

“Whatever do you mean, Brinni?” says the first sweetly, and Brinni rolls her eyes.

“Velthei Nolaya Lavellan,” intones Keeper Deshanna, leaning on her staff, and it doesn’t escape Velthei’s notice that Deshanna’s voice is pitched just on the wrong side of sounding like an exasperated mother. “First of Clan Lavellan. Please approach the Elders.”

Rolling her eyes again, Brinni swats Velthei’s arm, who merely grins before turning to stride for the center of the circle.

She’s not sure why, but the air seems to thrum.

She’s not sure why, but the crashing ocean of anticipation she’s felt all day bleeds with fresh fear.

She’s not sure why, but when the warm brown eyes of her Keeper fall on her, she almost hesitates.

Almost.

When Velthei stops at the center of the circle, the Keeper of Clan Lavellan thumps the end of her staff against the ground, and the pockets of chatter in the gathered crowd quiets.

“The shemlen will be convening across the Waking Sea in Ferelden to settle the matter of the Mage-Templar War.” Back straight, staring down her nose, with the wind at her back, one almost forgets that Deshanna is in her seventies. “We Elders ask you to attend their Conclave. Observe and record the decisions made therein, and return to us safely, so that the People may learn how the winds of change blow. Do you accept this responsibility?”

Velthei Lavellan lifts her chin, pride burning in her eyes. “I do.”

 

* * *

  

Velthei is not used to ice. Sure, winter _happened_ in the Free Marches, but it wasn’t… this.

The wind screams around her and her captor. Her hair is crusted over in places — there’s frost on her _bangs_ — and she’s certain that humans came about because an elf lost two-thirds of their ears to frostbite and somehow managed to pass the trait on to their children.

They’re walking up the path towards Haven, she and her scowling, dark-haired captor, when her left hand rends itself in two. At least, that’s how it feels.

With no warning or preamble, it’s molten metal straight from the forge and the deepest bone-cleaving cramp all at once, and she tumbles to the unforgiving earth with a startled gasp. Sickly green light pours out of her palm. Then the pain blinks out of existence like it was never there, the sudden absence of it leaving her retching, shaking worse than when it roared to life to begin with.

Cassandra helps her to her feet, her hazel eyes softened with sympathy, and she gives the elf an awkward pat on her shoulder before turning on her heel and continuing up the incline.

“How _did_ I survive the blast?” asks Velthei. Anything to distract her from the way the world tilts.

Cassandra walks a few paces further, then stops, staring ahead at the path strewn with debris and bodies. “They say you stepped out of a rift, then fell unconscious. They say a woman was in the rift behind you.” That Cassandra’s voice drops, thickening with poorly-concealed grief, doesn’t escape her notice. “No-one knows who she was.” She clears her throat and continues, smoothing out to her usual clipped cadence, “Everything farther in the valley was laid waste, including the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I suppose you’ll see soon enough.”

Velthei’s eyes widen. “ _Everything?_ ”

Cassandra’s silence weighs on her like an anchor, and they continue to the bridge in stony silence.

A bass roar of flame and a brilliant flash of green is all the warning they get; a ball of debris from the Breach slams into the bridge, sending brick, soldiers and themselves careening in every direction. Cassandra tucks into a roll as she hits the frozen river below them and is back on her feet in an instant. Velthei bounces down the tumbling stonework and lands sprawled on her back, her new vantage point helpfully drawing her eyes towards the rotating green tear in the sky, until Cassandra blocks her view and yanks her to her feet as though she weighed nothing.

Another ball of glowing green careens into the river, pulling their attention, but this time, an otherworldly shriek joins it. The hair on the back of Velthei’s neck stands on end as a twisted figure with no legs, spindly arms and too-long, too-sharp claws coalesces from nothing and levels beady eyes on them. Sword and shield already in hand, Cassandra bangs her blade against the rim of her shield, and the creature’s entire body jerks as it glares at her. “Stay behind me!” she shouts, and charges, and all Velthei can do is wonder how in the world can this woman stay so _calm?_

Then the ground begins to bubble alarmingly, the bubbles themselves a greasy coal in color but ringed in that same shade of bright green. Despite the chill, sweat begins beading on Velthei’s forehead, and she casts about the flotsam from the blast, desperately searching for -- _there!_ A staff, rough hewn, but it’s all she needs. She lunges for it, and judging by the groan of the ice and the high-pitched keen of whatever it is that begins to pull itself out of the goop spreading across the river behind her, her fingers close around the wood just in time.

She twists and swings the staff around _hard_ , and the demon’s flashing claws send sparks as they glance against the staff’s metal focus. Digging into and dragging the chill bite of the mountain air as though it were water, Velthei adjusts her grip, knuckles whitening as she jabs the butt end of the staff forward, sending the deepening cold dancing around the wooden pole shooting into the demon’s eye in the form of a frozen spear. She stares at the body, panting.

Cassandra finishes her demon at roughly the same time, and levels her sword with the elf as she advances, shield between them and her face twisted into a snarl. “Drop your weapon! _Now!_ ”

Velthei straightens, indignant, scowling right back. “Do you _really think_ \--” She breaks off, gritting her teeth as she swallows the outrage, and she obeys. The sound of the wood and metal clanking against the ice makes her flinch. Cassandra follows the motion before flicking her wary gaze back up to her. Her brow wrinkles for a split second, and then the fire in her hazel eyes blinks out, and she sighs.

“You _should_ have a weapon,” she says, voice softened as though she were reprimanding herself. “I cannot protect you. Come.”

 

* * *

 

The Commander, standing before her, wears a mantle that elevates his already-imposing physique to something straight out of a romance novel. His face is drawn and weary, cheeks hollow, stark purple bags under his golden-brown eyes and a deep furrow between his brows.

 _Nice hair._ She’s tempted to say as much to him to break the post-battle tension. As he sheaths his sword, the emblem of the Templar Order gilded into his gauntlets glints in the filtered light.

The fear that rakes through her ties her tongue when he credits Cassandra for closing the rift. Velthei clenches her left hand by her side.

Cassandra corrects him.

And when he turns the force of his scowl to settle on her, burning into her eyes, she does not — _will not —_ take a step back. Her chin jerks up in defiance; her wild eyes betray her, she knows, but she tries anyway.

“I hope they’re right about you,” he says. “We lost a lot of people getting you here.”

The reproach in his voice cuts through her fear, but biting back at a Templar as a lifelong apostate is unwise, mark or no mark. Honesty it is.

“You’re not the only one hoping that,” she says wryly.

He snorts, unamused. “We’ll see soon enough, won’t we?”

With a flick of his gaze, he drops her from his regard, turning instead to talk to Cassandra. When he slings an injured soldier’s arm around his broad shoulders before withdrawing, she breathes a sigh of relief.

 

* * *

 

She stares at the pile of straw-colored hair lying in the grass at her feet.

She knew it was going to happen.

She knew it was necessary.

Roving bands of Templars seeking apostates to take to their Circles — or to kill them for sport — were known in the Free Marches before the Mage Rebellion occurred.

Now?

Now, sport is _all_ it is.

And “hunted for sport” has been the People’s lot for centuries.

Best not give the shemlen anything to grab.

Reaching back to touch air where a braid used to be, she mourns the change anyway.

 

* * *

 

A new staff, new bruises, and new companions. Her feet move almost of their own accord as she trudges behind a dwarf bearing a crossbow as tall as him. Another elven apostate, very tall and very bald, pads softly behind her, his face blank. Cassandra leads. She feels like she’s being herded.

 _And_ she’s outnumbered.

If things went bad, she’d have little recourse unless she got lucky and disabled them somehow while she made her escape. The mark on her left hand flares, a betrayal in flickering green, and she curls her fingers around it, wishing for a glove.

She’s never had to think this way before. A shiver runs through her.

The dwarf — Varric — is looking at her over his shoulder as they walk, and when she realizes he’d asked her something, her head jerks up. “I’m — I apologize. I wasn’t listening.”

His gravelly laughter is infectious. “Well, that much is obvious! Where are you from, kid?”

 _Kid?_ “The Free Marches.”

“Oho! You must be enjoying the change in climate. The Frostbacks are _charming_ this time of year.” He grins. “Or any time of year. It’s all the same up here: the ass end of cold. Who made the ground vertical, anyway?”

She barks a laugh, then claps a hand over her mouth.

 

* * *

 

She’s long known that unpleasant answers often await the curious. She thought she was prepared.

She wasn’t.

Huddled together with the city elves in the damp chill of the ship’s cargo hold — the only appropriate place for vermin, of course — the questions she gets asked are absurd, once they see her take her hood down. Once their eyes rake across her vallaslin.

“I hear your people have learned how to control _trees._ ”

“How many flowers do you have to weave into your hair to be a real Dalish?”

“Are you nudists?”

“What do bugs taste like?”

She always thought she’d become one of those irritatingly abstruse Keepers, but they’re trying _so hard_ to antagonize her that she can’t help but be amused into honesty. She’s forthright as possible, and the grin that spreads across her face is the first real one she’s worn since she left her world behind.

On her end, she’d never met a city elf before, and she has many questions for them. “ _Shut up, Vel_ ,” says Brinni in her mind’s eye.

They tell her of the rumors of Dalish clans accepting city elves into their ranks. How more than a few city elves have run off to live with the Dalish, and it seems to be a common enough occurrence that three different people from three different alienages can relate similar stories.

So she asks for clarification. A woman around her age tells her what city elves face. Food shortages. Guard persecution. Disease. Scapegoating. How it’s expected that newly appointed chevaliers in Orlais will prowl the alienages for elves to blood their new blades with.

Rape.

And what happens when a “purge” is called for. The rumors she’d heard and the books she’s read don’t prepare her for reality. She shares part of her rations with the children.

“We have no need of your pity,” the woman barks. The next day, she doesn’t glare quite so hard when Vel shares her rations anyway.

When she walks down the gangplank to step onto the rickety wooden dock, she doesn’t walk with friends behind her. But neither does she step before enemies.

And the fire that forever roils in her belly sparks that much higher.

 

* * *

 

Velthei’s eyes open to the inside of a cabin that manages to dwarf the largest aravel in her clan.

Licking dry lips, she heaves herself to a sitting position and grimaces at how the world spins.

A willow whip of an elf girl, arms wrapped around a crate that she shouldn’t be able to carry, emerges from the darkness of the cabin’s tiny foyer. She meets Velthei’s startled gaze, drops the crate, and squeaks, taking a step or two backwards. “I — I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were awake!”

She isn’t used to seeing _fear_ in another elf’s eyes. “It’s all right!” she says, beginning to wave her hands. “I didn’t mean to scare y—”

The girl drops to all fours, bowing her head so low her forehead nearly touches the floorboards. “I beg your forgiveness, and your blessing! I am but a humble servant.”

Velthei stares at her, mouth hanging open, and the girl presses on. “You are back in Haven, my lady. They say you _saved_ us; the Breach stopped growing, just like the mark on your hand! It’s all anyone has talked about for the last three days!”

She turns her hand over. _Green. Glowing._ Her stomach roils, and she clenches her hand into a fist, fingers clamping over the brilliant flicker, flicking her gaze to meet the girl’s. “So — we’re safe?”

“The Breach is still in the sky, but that’s what they say!”

The girl staggers to her feet, wringing her thin hands as she starts backing towards the door. Velthei lifts a hand to stop her, but she just shakes her head, eyes going round with fear. “I’m certain Lady Cassandra would want to know you’ve wakened! She said ‘at once’!”

That gets her attention. Velthei swings her legs over the edge of the bed — she wonders where her clothes went and why on earth they’ve been replaced by beige pajamas — and stares. “Cassandra? Where is sh— Wait. Did you say _three days?_ ”

“S-she’s in the Chantry! With the Lord Chancellor — ‘At once,’ she said!”

She pivots on her heel, and dashes out of the cabin, long limbs flying. “Gods,” Velthei mutters, and staggers to her feet.

Flipping the lid of the tiny chest at the foot of the bed, she rears back, eyes widening with surprise.

She’d stubbornly insisted on bringing her proper Dalish First robes with her on her journey to Ferelden. After the fourth odd look she’d gotten wearing them, she traded some drakestone she’d found jutting out of a nearly-dry creek for standard clothing. She’d gotten skinned, she knew, but she didn’t care; she needed to make it to Ferelden in one piece, at least, and between her ears, her tattoo, and her robes, the latter was the easiest to … integrate.

So her proper Dalish robes were rolled into a wad and shoved deep into the bottom of her pack.

Seeing her robes folded, wrinkles pressed out of the flowing fabric and laid flat with care -- it had to have been the servant. Her chest swells, and her eyes prickle and sting, and she thumbs at them viciously. _Not now. Not_ **_now_ ** _._

Dressing in the robes of a Keeper’s First had always been calming; tunic and loincloth first, chainmail second, verdant green robes next, and butter-soft, rich brown leather cuirass over top before handling the final touches -- the strapped bracers and greaves the Dalish were known for.

This time, though, dropping her cuirass over her head and slipping the prong through the corresponding notch in the leather strap does nothing to settle the pounding of her heart. Tying the last bow on her gauntlets does nothing to dry the sweat tracking down the back of her neck, or to chase the chill of fear from her body.

As she ties her dun hair back in a ponytail, she looks down at herself. _This is as good as I’m going to get._ Giving her shoulders a roll, she makes for the door. A short gesture, and the nip of cold touching her bare toes disappear. She snatches her new, stolen staff from its resting place, slips out of the cabin --

\-- only to back against the door choking on a shriek as the stunned, silent pack of people gathered reverently outside her door bring their fists to their breasts in salute.


	2. Her Dammit Hart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Velthei begins to understand that going from reviled to revered in the span of three days is not nearly as fun as it sounds.

_“Get the **mage!** ”_

_The bandits began with twelve; they were down to seven now, bodies lying slashed open, peppered with arrows, or blistered and charred past any hope of recognition. Her family was down two, each death a spear in her heart even as she vaporized the arrows hurtling towards them._

_Too late, she saw the gangly man with the cauliflower ear emerge from the brush to her left. She reared back and the chipped dagger he clenched in his fist laid open her cheek. Too bad for him; he had slashed instead of thrusted. She drove her balled fist into the exposed soft spot just behind his leather cuirass; his breath left him in a whuff, and he took a stumbling step back before a single bolt of lightning arced through him, then chained to two others advancing on her position._

_Four on four, now. Blood poured down her face, her neck, and she wheeled around to assess_

_The leader fell with a gurgle, the fletching of an arrow jutting out of his visor._

_Three on four. The remnants of the bandit troop turned and bolted. The gods teach mercy, but the bandits had little reason to do what they did. They could have slipped past their scouts, gotten to the aravels and stolen what they needed; instead, they killed sweet Athalen on his second day as a scout, his skin flushed pink from how new his vallaslin was. His scream had split the sky, it seemed. He was still a child. **Was** a child..._

_His death gave the Clan the warning they needed. She supposed she should be thankful for that much, but her heart was wrung out, shriveled like a raisin, and she had no capacity left in her for mercy today._

_They twisted their ankles on roots coaxed from the earth. Thorny vines stretched into their path and tore at their clothing. Then the arrows came._

_She set them ablaze as they fell anyway._

“That’s the Herald of Andraste,” someone in the crowd whispers, and she blinks the memory away. The snow-laden ground and bony thrust of the mountains behind the crowd are nothing like home, and the people — well, three days ago they wanted to kill her, too, so their change of heart to saluting her is just as jarring as the change in environment. She takes a deep, steadying breath and walks through the crowd. Her gaze flits from person to person and then finally down to the worn path under her feet. Clenching her free hand into a fist, she breaks into a trot.

 _Clan Lavellan does not hesitate_ , she thinks bitterly, _to panic and flee, today._ She elbows her way through a large pair of gates without looking to see where she is, and when the sight of the frozen lake and the sounds of the fledgling Inquisition soldiers sparring greet her, she spins on her heel, casting about in a panic.

Varric raises a sardonic hand at her as her eyes are pulled to the red and gold of his shirt. He jerks a thumb towards the one building that towers over the rest, and a smirk crawls its way across his face. Flushing, she makes her way up the winding walk towards what must be the Chantry. The clerics standing off to the side whisper to each other behind their hands, and, huffing a cloud of icy mist, she pulls the doors open.

The church is empty. Evidently, most people chose to lurk outside of the cabin she laid unconscious in. _Not a comforting thought,_ she thinks, and straps her staff to her back. Despite herself, she cranes her neck to take in the building.

It’s old, solidly built, and, to her, massive beyond comprehension. Pillars topped with carved stone stretch to the ceiling. Crimson tapestries picked out in gold thread are strung over the doorways, and small clusters of fine candles litter the floor. _What do they **do** with all of this space_, she wonders? The muffled sound of raised voices rumble through the great hall, drawing her attention, and she follows it to another, smaller pair of doors concealing an inner chamber.

“I do not believe she is guilty.” Cassandra?

She barges in and sees Templars in full regalia flanking the entryway a moment too late; she jumps, whirling around to face them, but they make no move to— well, do anything, despite the Chancellor she’d met a few days ago on the march to the Temple ordering them to chain her. Heart pounding, she straightens and stares warily until Cassandra dismisses them a moment later, and they depart without hesitation. She turns to stare at her, lips parting in amazement.

Chancellor Roderick’s scowl darkens like a thunderstorm. “You walk a dangerous line, Seeker.”

A muscle in Cassandra’s jaw jumps as she grits her teeth. The Chancellor’s words are a match, struck until flaring to life and tossed into a pile of eager kindling. The back-and-forth between the cleric, Cassandra, and her companion — the woman in the chainmail tunic with the unreadable face — culminates in Cassandra pounding a book several inches thick onto the table that dominates the room, declaring the “Inquisition” reborn. Chancellor Roderick storms out, slamming the door behind him.

A few moments of quiet pass between the trio of women left behind, and Velthei’s breath comes harder than it should for one who’s done nothing but stand still. Two pairs of eyes settle on her and she resists the urge to shrink away; she’d gotten used to the suspicious looks and the wariness, but now there was hope in the eyes of so many and hope is terrifying. Hope endures. When she’s told that they intend to restore order, Cassandra holds her hand out, and Velthei hesitates under the fire in the Seeker’s eyes. She searches her face for traces of hostility, scorn —

She finds none, and she feels like she’s scrabbling for purchase trying to scale a glass wall. Feeling the color drain from her face, she takes the Seeker’s hand, and shakes firmly, not trusting herself to find words equal to the weight of the moment.

Days pass. The hiss of molten metal and the ringing of hammers tear through the air day and night. The grumpy alchemist who oversaw her recovery gets his own study. People flow into Haven. At first, it’s a slow trickle of the displaced returning to their homes. Then, as crows are released with scrolls tied to their backs and declarations hammered into the church doors, the trickle turns into a stream of pilgrims. Faithful Andrastians come to visit the site of the Breach, to see the reformation of a legendary governing body, and to witness for themselves the elven Herald of Andraste.

Velthei gets sharp looks when she unhitches her hart from his post in the ramshackle stables on the outskirts of the village. At first, she backs down, and lets the stable hands ride him.

It’s when she sees him standing halfway across the lake with his head buried in a thatch of dead grass jutting out from the snow cover, with a very frustrated young woman in the saddle lifting the reins over and over again and saying something she’s too far away to hear, that she cracks a smile. Biting her lip to keep from bursting into laughter, she gives her shoulders a roll and trots past the command tents to rescue them both from each other.

The stable hand shoots her a grateful look as she slides to the ground. “He just — he just _stopped,_ Your Worship!”

Velthei laughs, taking the reins. “I don’t believe I’ve told anyone this, but the reason I ended up at the Conclave when I did was because of _him_. I was due to arrive a day earlier.”

The woman’s eyes widen. “Really?”

“Ahh, the truth emerges! The so-called Herald of Andraste doesn’t know how to ride a mount!” says Velthei grandly, spreading a hand wide and grinning. “No. We had little notice that the Conclave was happening, so my clan chose to pay for a good animal and hand me a book on riding, rather than pay for me to take lessons and be unable to afford anything that wasn’t elderly, feeble, or insane. We have no mounts in Clan Lavellan, and we never had much coin. I purchased Revas after disembarking from that damn boat in Jader. While en route to the Conclave, he stopped dead for over an hour.” She plunges a hand into his fur and curries him thoroughly as the woman begins to smile. “I got so frustrated that I dismounted and pushed him.”

She titters once, then claps a hand over her mouth, a blush spreading across her brown cheeks as her eyes widen in horror. “I — My apologies, Your Worship!”

“What are you apologizing for?” asks Velthei with incredulity, turning to face her with a brow quirked before blinking with dawning realization. “Wait. Have you people been calling _me_ ‘Your Worship’? I thought that was a general— wait!” As the stable hand retreats, she heaves herself into the saddle with a sigh. After that, the sight of her astride her hart stops inducing worried whispers among the townsfolk. Mostly.

It’s when the Inquisition’s final ranking member arrives — a young Antivan woman by the name of Josephine Montilyet — she’s introduced to _all of them_ at once. The hooded woman becomes Leliana, and the warrior becomes Cullen.

She’s assigned her mission as an agent of the Inquisition: Disrupt the fighting between the rogue templars and the apostates. Aid the refugees. Find horsemaster Dennett’s whereabouts, should he still live; if so, see about acquiring horses and recruiting him to the cause. Most importantly, she is to meet with Revered Mother Giselle, who is aiding the refugees in the Hinterlands.

A distraction. She’ll get to _move._ She’ll get to _see_. And she won’t be surrounded by stammering gawkers. Eyes are on her every time she steps outside of the cabin she’s been — assigned? Given? She’s afraid to ask. She’s afraid of the _implications_.

As the group files out of the church, Cullen remarks that the Chantry proper has already decided Velthei’s culpability in the matter of the Breach, and it takes a minute for her to realize that he’s joking. She offers him a quick smile, and he inclines his head before departing with his lips pressed flat. Hands folded behind her back, Leliana offers no such familiarity as she returns to her tent, face impassive.

Josephine hangs back and calls to her, and Velthei turns, raising her eyebrows with curiosity before trotting to follow. The ambassador leads them to what Velthei presumes is going to be her new office — an old but fine desk has been dragged into the chamber, its surface loaded with fine candles, and behind it lie crates filled with books stacked two or three deep. A row of ancient, weathered bookshelves line the walls, and Velthei is tempted to run a finger through the dust coating them.

Following her gaze, Josephine smiles. “It almost makes one want to doodle in it.”

“I — I would nev…” Trailing off, she sighs. “Yes, one almost wants to doodle in the dust. A smile, specifically, and then one would feel bad and clean it myself. Oneself.”

“It would hardly do for the Herald of Andraste to be found dusting,” laughs Josephine. “In all seriousness, I wanted to ask you something, if you have a moment.”

Velthei cocks her head, a smile still touching her lips. “How can I help you?”

“Has anyone been — unkind to you, or to elves in general, in your presence? Or perhaps to your knowledge?”

“No, not to my knowledge. It’s … certainly not what I expected.”

“Please let me know the minute someone says something untoward. Words chosen with care will end their career here — and elsewhere.”

It’s said so lightly, so sweetly, that Velthei stares agog at the ambassador before coming back to herself with a pop. She inhales, trying to keep the burble of joy from showing on her face, but from how her cheeks burn she knows she’s only somewhat successful. “I — thank you. I will.”

Later that day, she submits a request to Threnn for a sheaf of paper to note the local flora. When the gangly elven girl she met a few days ago appears on her doorstep to hand her a waxed leather notebook with a leather-bound spine, oilcloth, and a pencil, she stammers her thanks, unable to tear her gaze away from the prize she’s been given. Wrapping the notebook with care in the oilcloth, she sits with the parcel in her lap and mulls over the expense.

The afternoon before her group is due to depart, the letter arrives. While she’s never made any particular effort to prevent her emotions from rising to her face before the humans in the Inquisition, her eyes widen in unabashed astonishment as Leliana hands her the scroll. It’s written in a flowing, steady hand Velthei knows all too well, and her hand presses to her mouth as she scans down the page, hiding a smile at first, then the wobble of her lips as the wrench of homesickness takes her breath away.

She takes care to school her face to neutrality before she drops her hand to clutch the paper to her heart. “I will have an answer ready tonight,” she says, before any of them can interject with a suggestion. “Be sure to use an elf to deliver it. And bring money, or herbs, or clothing, or — or all of it. We — they — don’t have much.” Leliana erases the barest suggestion of a smile from her face as she nods.

_Hahren,_

_Andaran atish’an. Ma melava halani; There are no other Dalish here in Haven, and to receive word from home has brought me great comfort._

_I was held prisoner, falsely accused of creating the Breach, but my name has been cleared and all is well for the moment. My hand bears a supernatural mark that can seal tears in the Veil, smaller than the Breach but no less destructive, so I have been recruited by the Inquisition to protect the populace until the Breach itself can be sealed. The humans have been calling me the Herald of Andraste. I believe the irony of it is lost on them… but while I have value, I am safe._

_Please accept the gifts the Inquisition has sent. It's all I can do for now._

_Ma serannas. I miss all of you._

_Dareth shiral,_

_Velthei_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to start from the beginning.
> 
> The other works will stay public until this story catches up with it, and then they'll be merged.
> 
> Beta & endless patience provided by bitchesofostwick and kvpowers on Tunglr.


End file.
